Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of works of William Gibson/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list removal nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was kept by The Rambling Man 07:50, 26 September 2012 [1].

List of works of William Gibson[edit]

Featured list removal candidates/List of works of William Gibson/archive1

Notified: Skomorokh, WikiProject Science Fiction, WikiProject Literature, WikiProject Books

I do love me some William Gibson, but I do not believe this list fits the FL criteria at this time. Among my concerns:

The use of external links in the body of the article, contrary with WP:EL.
A general lack of references for list items.

I am also concerned with the way this list is formatted: would it be better presented in a sortable table?

I have notified Skomorokh, but I fear he is no longer active. Town of Cats (talk) 14:18, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Goodraise

I don't see anything objectionable about the format. Still, sortable tables provide an undeniable advantage, and for the moment I don't see a reason why this list shouldn't make use of them.
Many of the list items serve as their own references. That is a bit unusual, but I don't think it's problematic. It all comes down to verifiability and that is provided for most items.
Would you mind citing the passage of WP:EL you think is violated by this list? The way I read them, neither WP:CITE nor WP:EL appear to impose a lot of hard rules. And many links in this article appear to be acceptable per WP:ELYES.

Without having done an in-depth review, I think there is room for improvement here (perhaps making it more closely resemble more recently promoted lists like George Orwell bibliography), but I'm not yet at the point where I'd advocate delisting. Good raise 19:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First sentence states, "[external links] should not normally be used in the body of an article". If they should be references, then they ought to be converted into references, and not external links. Town of Cats (talk) 19:29, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's take the following list item as an example:

—. "Remembering Johnny: Notes on a Process" (1995), Wired, 3.06, June 1995.

It isn't only a list item, it is also a reference. For the sake of the argument, we could replace this item with the sentence "William Gibson wrote 'Remembering Johnny: Notes on a Process'" and place the original item in a footnote behind it. We could also put it in parentheses as an in-line reference. Both options are acceptable per WP:CITE. WP:EL uses the word normally, making me think of normal articles consisting mostly of paragraphs of prose. Don't you think that a list of works constitutes an abnormal situation? Good raise 19:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I understand. What prevents other FLs from citing CDs in discographies and episodes in episode lists then? Do Google Books links make good links in bibliographies? What about direct links to episodes? Are all of these acceptable, and if not, why? Town of Cats (talk) 12:44, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What sources are acceptable depends on the kind of information you want them to support. In an episode list, the episodes themselves can serve as the source for the episode summaries, but they can't normally be used as sources for their own original air date, because they don't contain that kind of information. When all you want to do is to show that a book exists, using Google Books is a perfectly fine way of doing that. Good raise 13:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I feel we're getting a bit sidetracked here, which is totally my fault. Back to the point, are we confident that all of Gibson's work is represented in the list? Do in-body external links fall within policy and exemplify our highest quality work? Do these in-body external links serve as sources as well? While I realize it is extremely simple to convert these into references, is it necessary?
Please correct me if I've misread you, but from your response I've read that, first, the links are perfectly acceptable as sources, to which I agree. Additionally, you hold no issue that these external links are problematic in the body, and, while you wouldn't object to adding an in-line citation containing the exact same information as that in the list already, there's no need do so.
Unrelated to above, I should point out that this is most likely not a reliable source.
Again, thanks for putting up with me. Town of Cats (talk) 14:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he has written something not covered in this list, but criterion 3a does not insist on completeness.
In regard to in-body ELs:

WP:EL's wording allows for a fair amount of leeway. Compare "should not normally be used in the body of an article" with "should not be used in the body of an article" or even "should never be used in the body of an article". I understand the use of the word normally as an acknowledgement (beyond WP:IAR) that there are cases where this particular rule should not apply.
I'm not saying that these list items can be converted into references, I'm saying that they are references. Keep in mind that an URL is not an essential part of a reference, even for sources available exclusively online. Take the URL out of a reference and it can still be considered valid.
Essentially, I'm saying that the double role of these list items as article content and reference creates a highly unusual situation, warranting an exception. Of course this is just my personal opinion. If I'm alone with that opinion, then you're right and these links should be removed from the article body. If consensus agrees with me, then perhaps some guideline should be tweaked to accommodate this and similar lists.

Don't worry. This isn't at all inconvenient, not to me anyway. Good raise 14:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's be honest here: I'd much rather it be the case that these list items are citations in and of themselves, since it saves me the trouble of looking them up in WorldCat or other databases. It just seems lazy, though I understand and generally agree with everything you've stated. Town of Cats (talk) 15:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Refs need to be checked.
Do we know this list is complete and up to date?
"(1986, Preface by Bruce Sterling):" why the P?
Maybe my ignorance but "—. "Tokyo Collage" in SF Eye, August 1988." why the em-dash and full stop, then why end the incomplete sentence with a full stop?
"April 1990, 21-23." should be en-dash. Other examples are here.
pp. is for multiple pages, not single pages.
Some years of publication are in parentheses, some aren't, why?
Also not keen on the "embedded external links".

Overall ~~leaning to delist~~ because I'm not sure, as a sum of its parts, it quite adds up to the best Wikipedia can offer. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:56, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An em-dash is used in some citation styles to avoid repetition. Here, all of the em-dashes stand for Gibson, William. Good raise 17:01, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. So it's commonplace to just use that markup for "uncollected" work, not "collected" work? It seems unnecessarily complex to me considering this is called "List of works of William Gibson", so there should be little ambiguity as to who wrote the "uncollected" works. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:10, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Beats me. I just know that WP:CITE puts little to no restrictions on what citation styles can be used. There may be some manual of style out there (outside of Wikipedia) mandating things to look exactly the way this article does them, or the article's authors may have just followed their gut feeling, not unlike our own Citation Style 1. I'd have to agree though, the information could be presented in a simpler way, e.g. in sortable tables. Good raise 19:34, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well I'd like to see internal consistency, or at least an explanation as to why various sections would be presented differently. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can attempt to whip up an essay version of a MOS:List of Works or whatever. Town of Cats (talk) 20:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would be possibly useful, but clearly would need to take all the intricacies of MOS regarding data tables and prose all in one into account. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:15, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, the dashes were added during the article's FLC. Compare: The article as nominated and as promoted. I can't quite follow the reasoning though. Good raise 00:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All links checked and fixed.
The list is complete and uptodate, afaik.
P made lowercase.
pp. misuse fixed.
Years in parentheses: This is related to the formatting, and I'll leave 'fixing' anything until we decide on whether sortable tables are wanted.
See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works (and WP:WikiProject Bibliographies#Recommended structure which it links to) for what we've got, currently.
External links: 2 examples from our other FL bibliographies - List of works by Joseph Priestley places all the external sources in a section at the end, and List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein includes direct pdf links throughout. In non-FL bibliographies, styles vary; F. Scott Fitzgerald bibliography uses external links within a table.
The benefits are: reduced redundancy, and arguably-better for the reader - ie. not repeating all the information again in a cite template, and also not forcing the user to guess that the ref-link^[1] will lead them to "the actual work by the author", rather than just to some external "list of works" that the entry is using as supporting evidence.
Philosophically: Both styles are fine by me, but embedded links are insufficient to warrant delisting, imho. The readers and the content adders prefer it, but the copyeditors and janitors prefer utter separation (mostly to prevent future arguments. Which makes sense, but is annoying).

HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Can all reviewers be contacted to revisit this FLRC? What issues have yet to be resolved? Dabomb87 (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I believe all of the issues have been discussed, and most of the concerns have been fixed. The only remaining concerns are:
1. Dashes used to indicate the author's name eg diff. As a comparison, the FL List of works by Joseph Priestley does the same throughout, except in its 7th section (I'm not sure what styleguide this is following). Here, I would suggest that we remove them all for clarity/consistency, except in the "Forewords, introductions and afterwords" section. (Now done. Satisfactory?)
2. The dates not all appearing in parentheses. This is hard to fix, as citation templates don't place dates in parentheses, but human readers often prefer plain years to be in parentheses (both to separate and highlight), but mixing month/day/year into it gets confusing (August 5 1995). Most bibliographies have a mix, eg List of Maya Angelou works.
3. Embedded citation links. Some people prefer to separate them, some people value them. A few of the nuances/precedents/policies are discussed above. I favor leaving them as they are. It's not forbidden, and is widely used in other Featured content.
4. Placing everything in sortable tables. Suggested a few times above. Outside the remit of this process?
I believe it's suitable to keep, at this time. I've pinged Goodraise and Town of Cats. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral: I see nothing horribly wrong with this list, but I haven't done an in-depth review. Good raise 15:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all my major concerns addressed. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fortunately for the rest of the world and unfortunately for me, "I don't like it" is not a valid delist reason. Thus, my vote is keep. Town of Cats (talk) 16:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the above. Congrats on fixing up the list. TBr and ley 02:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been kept, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.